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She started down, gun leading the way. Herflashlight burned through the inky depths as the risers creaked under herweight. As she descended, the stench of harsh chemicals became overwhelming,and it mingled with the cloying rot of festering garbage for good measure.
But Ella pushed on, the thrill of the huntthrumming through her veins and drowning out all else. Aleister was down here,she'd bet her badge on it. Probably thought he was safe in his dank little rathole.
Ella hit the icy concrete at the bottom.She swept her light in a wide arc, shadows skittering up the crumbling brickwalls. The beam flashed over a rusted workbench cluttered with pipes andbottles, a propane tank hulking in the corner like a bloated metal toad.
Aleister's meth kitchen. His personalportal to chemical Wonderland.
‘FBI,’ Ella announced again. ‘It’s over,Aleister.’
Ella picked her way deeper into the room,waiting and praying for a response. She found overturned furniture, piles ofscrap metal and plastic tubing. Two more pieces of medieval equipment; a woodenchair covered in spikes and straps, a metal cage suspended in the air. Theplace was a regular medieval-meets-meth-house conception.
But no Aleister. Just the remnants of hisdisastrous attempts to cook crank.
Ella swore under her breath. Had shejumped the gun? Let him slip right through her fingers?
She was halfway to the stairs, ready todouble back and canvass the whole damn property inch by inch, when a sound madeher freeze.
A footstep. The scuff of a shoe onconcrete, directly behind her.
Ella whirled, finger tightening on thetrigger. But before she could get a bead on the threat, something slammed intoher from the side in a blur of flailing limbs.
She hit the ground hard, flashlight flyingas the air whooshed out of her lungs. A knee dug into her back, bony handsscrabbling for her gun. Aleister. He’d pulled a guerrilla ambush, lying in waitlike a snake in the grass. His hands clamped around her throat, squeezing,crushing, cutting off her air.
Ella bucked, thrashed, but he had an irongrip, a crackhead’s grip. Spots danced across Ella's vision as the pressurebuilt in her skull. She reached up to claw at his face, but Aleister dodged andtightened his grip around her neck.
But suddenly, the overhead light blazed tolife. Black turned to yellow and Aleister’s weight was ripped away as someonetore him off her like a scab off a wound.
She rolled to her side, coughing andwheezing as blessed air rushed back into her lungs. Luca and Aleister werejoined as one, careening across the room, with Luca driving Aleister back withthe inexorable force of a freight train. Aleister stumbled, flailed, tried tofind purchase on the filthy floor but Luca was relentless. With a roar thatrattled the teeth in Ella's head, Luca hurled Aleister towards a nightmarishcollection of medieval horrors. Spikes and blades and things that existed onlyto bring pain.
Time seemed to slow as Ella watchedAleister fly. He pinwheeled his arms, desperately trying to stop his momentum,but it was too late, too much.
Ella cringed in anticipation, bracing forthe sickening crunch of flesh meeting metal. And then it came as Aleisterslammed into a chair straight out of the Spanish Inquisition's wet dreams.
Rusted spikes pierced his back, drew bloodand howls in equal measure. But the crazy bastard didn't stay down. He joltedto his feet like a human pincushion high on pain and insanity.
He staggered forward, mouth open in awordless snarl. But Luca was ready for him. He snatched up a metal rod – thekind of thing that would be right at home in this house of horrors – and swung.
Not at the face, but in a perfect arcright between Aleister’s legs.
Metal on meat.
Even Ella had to clench her own nethers insympathetic agony.
And suddenly, Aleister was screaming adifferent tune.
He crumpled, hands clutching hispulverized package. A hit like that, Ella wouldn't be surprised if his ballswere powder.
She staggered to her feet, one handmassaging her bruised throat. She stared at Luca, at the steel in his eyes, theset of his jaw. In that moment, he was more than a pretty face rookie. He mightvery well have been her savior.
Luca tossed the rod aside with a clatter,his chest heaving as the adrenaline drained away.
He jerked his chin at Aleister, stillwrithing on the floor like a worm on a hotplate. His hands were glued to hisgroin.
‘The capital of Thailand,’ Luca said. Heturned back to Ella.
Ella pulled out her cuffs and threw themto her partner. ‘What?’
Luca suppressed a grin, pointed to thefallen suspect and said, ‘Bangkok.’
